Hamlet
Poem Unlimited
(amazon)Harold Bloom (View Bio)
Hardcover: Riverhead, 2003; Paperback: Riverhead, 2004.
"To read this book [is] to hear a powerful call to fall in love again with Shakespeare and his plays.... I can think of no more engaging and nourishing pairing of literary works: a drama of towering, perhaps unmatched genius joining an exquisite work of analytic criticism by a scholar of genuine greatness." — Baltimore Sun
"The indispensable critic on the indispensable writer." — New York Review of Books
"Filled with the pleasures for which Mr. Bloom is justly famous." — The Washington Times
"Bloom's criticism is as expansively entertaining as it is enlightening. Above all, endearingly, he reads the old-fashioned way: For him, fictional characters are human beings who live outside the confines of the plot, allowing us to indulge in imagination unlimited." — Boston Globe
"Bloom says that in SHAKESPEARE: Invention of the Human, other matters kept him from saying 'most of what [he] thought and felt about HAMLET.' A lucky thing, since now the great-hearted critic offers this little gem — deftly snatching HAMLET away from its legions of minor readers and reclaiming it for its major ones.... Shakespeare criticism that's big, alive, towering, deep, passionate — in an age that so industriously miniaturizes and demeans its literature." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Bloom reaches out to the layman, offering an accessible, thought-provoking guide to the play." — Montreal Gazette
"Bloom is a wonderfully perceptive guide.... Throughout, there are fine insights.... When all is said and done we agree with him that 'His play of some four thousand words is Shakepeare's longest and yet it is not long enough.'" — Providence Journal-Bulletin
"Bloom generates any number of provocative themes.... Short, sophisticated and opinionated, this is a thorny goodie." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A night's brilliant reading...HAMLET: Poem Unlimited will give you a night of pure joy and make you forget current events." — Liz Smith, New York Newsday
"[A] searching meditation of Shakespeare's most 'unlimited' play... The writing [is] vivid, translucent, elegant. [Bloom's] reading, though synoptic, conveys a sense of the play's fullness, and his metaphysical speculations leave us poised over an abyss, a void on the point of turning luminous." — The New York Sun
